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For those of you who know me you will probably know I’m a little fanatical about great music and finding undiscovered musicians. William Crighton is a fantastic artist I met a year ago and I have admired his work ever since. So it seemed a natural progression that I wanted to tie some of my creative thinking in with his amazingly beautiful and powerful music. The result is this 3.43 minute one shot music video for the song ‘Woman like you’. We shot down in the small NSW country town of Junee using a Mövi and in 4k. I’m sure we can all appreciate the challenges associated with long single take shooting especially when combined with zero budget but regardless we had a stack of fun and the result is a great interpretation of a beautiful song, well I think it is. I’ll be honest though there are a few things I would do differently, possibly because I’m a bit of obsessive with detail but hey thats the whole idea of giving things a red hot go and learning lessons.
I hope you enjoy (can I suggest that you don a pair of headphones and click full screen

The time has come and we can start releasing the images I shot for Tourism Australia. I have uploaded just six for the moment (see the commissioned section on my site) but stay tuned for more as there is a grab bag of images to choose from. Enjoy….we enjoyed making them…obviously.
Many thanks go out to great client agency and crew. More behind the scenes shots of the fun times will be added when i get a chance

Well we just finished shooting a music video for an amazing artist: Clint (William) Crighton.
Shooting down in the beautiful little country Australian town of Junee we created a 3.44min one shot take using a Movi. It was true choreography between the lead girl (Jules), camera and Clint. I met Clint some months ago and fell in love with his music. I promised him a film clip was in the making. I finally got the chance to write, direct, produce and yesterday, with an amazing team, shoot our little creation. We’re now off to the edit where Chris Baron will be performing his usual magic….Stand by for the finished product in a month or so. Below is a screen grab of the opening frame and a few BTS images.

Recently, I had the pleasure to add to my growing Directing CV, and work with long time friend and all round beautiful man, Gavin McCleod (ECD at R/GA Sydney) on Telstra’s 2nd Chance Song campaign, featuring Bob Evans, formerly the front-man of Jebediah. Essentially, Telstra and EMI are allowing the song to be reinterpreted and a new version to be created by musical punters out there for a chance to be signed and released. The song chosen was ‘Don’t you think its time’ – a beautiful folk ballad.
It was a long loooong day (is anyone surprised these days!) shooting with a great crew in a cool club in Sydney, where we created the entire set from scratch. We then shot an interview with John O’Donnell (MD of EMI) as he was driving. We used everything from full-on fantastic lighting set ups (thanks Finbarr), 2 x 1DC’s, a Movi and rigs for 2 camera setups (external and internal) on a moving car, while capturing dialogue audio. It ended up being a two minute piece and we shot well over a terabyte due to the dual camera, 4K file size. Treatment wise, I pushed to keep it raw, rough and honest and the client understood and went for it. Well done to them, as it is Telstra after all. Enjoy.

The TVC I directed for the University of Tasmania is now on air. It was shot in Bearnie, Launceston and Hobart

Many thanks to a great crew and the agency Red Jelly. Special thanks goes out to Jerome Gaslain (Assoc CD), Nadine Logan (Agency Producer and all a round great gal) and Juan Melara (DOP and legend for handholding a RED for 4 days), Chris Baron (Editor extraordinaire) and James Whitehill from Maven (my Producer). Client is very happy, agency is stoked, a nice little spot was created and a great time was had by all – can’t ask for more than that!

Over the last few weeks I’ve directed a TVC for University of Tasmania (UTAS) down in Tassie (Bearnie/Launceston/Hobart)
The shoot went amazingly well and fun was had by all. We shot in one of my favorite styles: loose, run and gun and all on a Red (wow how fantastic is that)
Just wrapping up the edit so stay tuned for the results.
Below are some behind the scenes shots.

Southland is a body of work featuring the South Island of New Zealand. I have exhibited it in Melbourne and New York but never in full in Sydney. Now that I am part owner in Black Eye (contemporary photographic gallery in Darlinghurst) well the work was a natural fit to be shown.

In this day and age of digital photography SOUTHLAND highlights the beauty of the organic photography medium. Photographed using Polaroid film on a large-format camera it is a visually rich and inspired interpretation of the powerful New Zealand landscape.

SOUTHLAND is showing from 14th August until 8th of Sept – with the opening night 6-8pm on Tues 20th of August.

This week we made a 30sec TVC for Fairfax Media through Whybin/TBWA. While the pre production was drawn out the two shoot days were so much fun we all had sore cheeks from laughing. The spot, which I directed, was made up of a series of cute/funny/awkward scenarios people find themselves in when overly absorbed in their hand held devices. While we had clear scenarios we were a light and nimble crew which meant we could adapt and add shots to capture unexpected lovely and funny moments – the current offline edit is already looking amazing and the client is stoked. Looking forward to posting the finished result. And just to bring it all home we also shot a stills campaign along side the TVC. We got amazing shots and is a testament to having the same crew/director handle both aspects. Thanks go out to James from Maven Productions, the AMAZING crew, and Jono/Cimo/Honae from the agency and Helen/Amanda from Fairfax for letting us run with what felt right on the shoot days.

Well it makes no sense but myself and a good friend decided that Sydney needed a classy dedicated photography gallery. So we made one and opened it in April 2013 and thus far have shows filling up the rest of the year. There seems to be a bit of a buzz around town about Black Eye Gallery!, feel free to come in and check it out: 138 Darlinghurst Rd, Darlinghurst.

Our Easter Show TVC for the Royal Agricultural Society finally made it to air – produced on a very tight budget its a pretty good step up from where they have been in the past…flying pigs and all that. There was quite a bit of pre production planning to ensure the live action and 3D animation meshed seamlessly.Thanks to James from Maven Productions, the Chee’s and a great crew who worked an extremely long day to bring it all together. Well done.

Recently we shot/directed a 30 and 15″ TV ad for the Royal Easter Shows 2013 campaign. We had to set up the show…with out setting up the show! It was a MASSIVE day!. The CD made the comment that he doesn’t think he has seen that many shots fit into one day before – Well its called Daylight saving and a LEGENDARY crew!!! The spots had some very technical aspects to them as we were mixing live action and 3D animation…then we had the deadly 3: kids/animals/outside locations. But we pulled it off. The spots are now in post production and looking great. Thanks go out to our amazing crew, Maven, Chee Productions and the agency Deepend. Stay tuned to see it on air…hopefully not to client affected!

Howdy – early December we shot a new TVC for Bay Leather Republic. Initially the brief was for a 15″, but it quickly became apparent that a 30″ was in order. I think the results look great and it represents my 4th TVC in a directing role – hey this directing thing may actually catch on! (while on the topic – we are shooting another TVC for the Sydney Easter Show in Jan)
Many thanks go out to James from Maven and all the crew for a fantastic job. Also many thanks to CD Dan Mercer (from the agency: Strategy Design & Advertising) for being a blast to work with. Enjoy

The boys and I recently shot Clarkey and Glenn McGrath. It was on the back of a TVC for Toyota and, as usual, we had only 10mins to get the shots – but due to the TVC running a little over we got what we needed in 8 min – all went well and everyone was really happy. Above are some behind the scenes photos.

I’m a bit late in posting this but the Port Macquarie Tourism TVC ‘Little Treasures’ went live (about a month ago) – The guys a Port Macquarie Tourism and people in the region are loving it as a fantastic, realistic and fresh way to illustrate what they already know: the Port Macquarie area is dreamy and beautiful… and yes you can also get great coffee from the many cool cafes…ticks all the boxes really. I have posted the TVC on my site (Commission>motion) or you can click vid thumb above or see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6gQu6zVSe8
My site also has some of the recent print work (just in rough layouts) that we shot at the same time as shooting the TVC.
I also suggested that we create a downloadable PDF that shows people where each each scene from the TVC was shot – the idea being, that if interested, someone could download a map and take the journey we did – it’s called ‘The little treasure trail’ The guys at PM tourism loved the idea and it has turned out to be a great little tourism initiative: you can check it out here: Little Treasure Trail
Enjoy.

Well we are not long back from a fantastic shoot for Port Macquarie Tourism – where we had an unprecedented 7 days of pure clear skies and toasty sun. We were shooting a TVC that I thankfully got to write and direct along with fitting in a stills campaign at the same time. The shoot went really well and we have a very happy client as we fitted a lot in for their budget. A huge thanks goes out to the crew and talent who made it yet another truly fun experience. Look for the TVC on air later this year.

Here’s a sneak preview of couple of images from the project I am currently working on titled: Made by Man. The project will be shot over a few years and attempts to illustrate the beauty that us, as humans, can add to the natural landscape…but only if we think carefully about it! I love wind turbines – when I first see them they always catch me by surprise as their abstract beauty reminds me of an alien from ‘war of the worlds’. The images are shot using an Arca Swiss 6×9 field camera with a various high end digital backs – showing them small doesn’t really do them justice as they are shot to print huge….but hey this is just a sneak preview. hope you like

It seems that I lucked out and got into the finalists for the 2012 National Portrait Prize that will be exhibited by the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.
The image of mine above is of an indigenous cattle handler working in the Northern Territory.

TThis project came about after Richard from Department of Doing presented the Darwin behind the scenes video we had made to the NT Client. He loved it and they loved it and thought the technique would work well for their next TVC featuring the Red Centre. The brief was essentially “show a couples journey from Alice Springs to Uluru (Ayers Rock) , shot from one of their POV’s” (you can see the finished result in the commissioned (motion) section of my site). We also managed to somehow fit in a stills shoot along the way.

As can probably be appreciated from the BTS video – The project was the most fun any of us had on a shoot – we stayed everywhere from nice hotels to being choppered up to a mountain ridge in the middle of wayout back NT where we slept in swags under the night sky. I pass on a huge personal thanks to my friends who all gave blood, sweat and tears to make the project such a success: Pete, Dave, Chris, Chris T, Megan (who was like 5 months pregnant when shot it!). A huge thanks also to our amazing talent Alex and Grant and of course Richard and NT Tourism for having the faith in us to be able to pull off the project.

I was stoked to see my image of MAYA get selected for the Sydney Life exhibition in Hyde Park. The images are huge (3 x 2 meters) and strung up between the trees lining the main walk through the park. Its a beautiful way to see your work, its also great to anonymously watch others checking it out and adding their interpretation. The caption running with the image was: The end of a long day at the weekend markets, while Maya is not so sure how she feels…her mother knows.

This backstage video is from our Tourism Northern Territory DARWIN shoot. It was the first job that we had done for them through our new friend Richard Hollingum who is the director of ‘Department of Doing’ their creative agency. A fantastic time time was had by all and the fun ranged from hanging out of helicopters to BBQ’ing at sunset on a 100 hundred year old pearl lugger.

Well this was a surprise – Advertising photographer of the year – thats great…i think! What i was more excited about was that the Red Centre TV ad that we made got runner up in the Fusion category (Fusion= combining stills and motion techniques). What was interesting was that it received a mark of 85 (silver distinction) but the winning piece got a mark of 80…not sure how that works! But it was a great night and I feel very happy to be recognised by the AIPP.
Above is a pic from the stage (scarrrry!) and a pic of my new stage friends.